View from the White House:

photography by Taylor

Rain Water

Rain Water:

Good for what may ail you. Wipes your blues away.

Little drops of wetness that make you smile.

Allowing our children to be children. To get wet in the

rain, to get dirty in the mud, and come in to clean clothes

and a snuggle blanket.

These memories stored away and will be embedded in their

mind. The refreshment of the rain and the breeze.

And for an instant everyone is best friends and everyone is happy.

No cares, no worries, just brothers and sisters

taking advantage of God's way of playing with his children. Sending smiles

amongst them all and an afternoon of summer fun.

Thank you Lord for the rain and watering my garden and my children....

Training my daughters

If girls are brought up as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, they will not have much influence for good over the men who become their husbands.

A thoughtless, selfish, snappish, fretful, overbearing, and dictatorial young woman may take prizes at school, may excel at music, and travel round the world, but the more she knows, the less culture she has. The commonest country girl, with good health, an open brain, and a warm, unselfish, patient, self controlled disposition, is a hundredfold more cultured than the boarding school graduate, who is fractious with her mother, cross with her sisters, or knows too much to associate with other girls.

by Tamara S.Valine

I truly believe one of the most important roles we must teach our daughters out side of honoring her father is being a delightful and helpful sister....If she can bend her will enough to have the love and respect of her brothers and sisters then her heart is moving in the right direction..

A true indicator of my daughters heart is on a typical day at home and how they use their words to encourage the others... Yes even Channie, she is in training and I start early encouraging her

to use her words wisely...only saying things that are kind and helpful..and when she doesn't pulling her aside and saying "Channie that was not kind to say to your brother why don't you tell him your sorry." She might say " I don't want to." Honest enough and then I would tell her "how important it is that she have a big heart and part of having a big heart is learning to forgive and not stay mad at someone..." she might then go and ask someone to forgive her and give a quick hug and all is well...(for the moment anyway)

Taylor on the other hand is on the front lines.Her attitude and her disposition is her own responsibility now. She has the vision of raising a multigenerational family so her role as big sister is very important to her..She gives very freely of her self and her time and she has no problem coming and asking for forgiveness when she has been short or snappy..Reminders are fewer these days but still there when needed..

Remember the attitudes in your children that you think they may out grow usually only get bigger...

Friends,Farm,Family and alittle black bottom:)

Daddy's Home!!

Sturdy and plump and clean and fair, With big brown eyes and a tangle of hair, There's a little lassie who runs to meet her father's step that rings on the street, As, day after day, at the set of the sun, Father comes home when his work is done.

Making money for wife and weans, Few are the sheaves the good man gleans;

All day long he is busy down-town,

Snowflakes sift where his hair was brown;

But he starts for home at an eager pace,

and love lights up the care-worn face.

For there at the window watching out

Is the little maid whose merry shout

of "Daddy is here!" in his ear shall be,

Swift as he turns his own latch-key.

And glad is the heart at the set of the sun

When father goes home with his day's work done.

~Anonymous

Thanking the Lord it's Friday and Channie's daddy will be home..

Have a blessed weekend and make sure you meet that man of yours with

a smile...

Trusting God

On November 12, 2007 I landed in Monrovia, Liberia to bring home a little sick baby boy whom I did not know.

No one prepared me.

As I landed, the heat of the African continent was breath-taking.

No one prepared me.

No one prepared me for the amount of people I would see or the noise that was there.

No one prepared me for the smell, the sights or the faces of the people I would see.

I walked into a new world and my main goal was to walk out of that world alive and well.

I was frightened most of this trip. Scared that Jo's paper work wouldn't go through.

Scared to sleep in a strangers house with guards and gates around me.

Just scared.

I just wanted to be on the other side and have Jo safe at home with my family.

I doubted our decision to adopt, I doubted my ability to survive in this country.

Fear does alot of things, but one of the main things it does is keep you from doing the will of God because you're too fearful to take chances or to do "hard things." You're too afraid to take a chance so you miss a blessing.

The night was March the 24th 2009

Driving in the rain to a hospital.

No one prepared me

No one told me how it would it feel to lose life before you met life.

No one prepared me for the look of heart break in my husbands eyes

when they said they couldn't find a heart beat. NO one prepared me for the sights I would see

or the noise that would surround me that night.

No one prepared me for the days that followed and the massive hole that

is and will be Forever in my heart.

I just wanted to survive.

I wanted to wake up every morning still breathing and remembering that God's plan is perfect.

No one prepared me for the months that would follow when the heart ache gets so bad that you have to pull over on the side of the road until you stop crying. No one prepared me for the anger that I felt.

I just wanted to be on the other side of this. Looking back and saying "I made it through."

I survived.

Life is scary. Life can be difficult to navigate sometimes and you wanna throw in the towel and say " I'm through, I'll coast from here thank you! NO more chances. No more living on the edge. My heart can't go through anymore hurt or anymore pain. I'm sure the Lord understands."

But does He? Our life is not our own and when you let that sink in, I mean REALLY sink in you know that our life belongs to the Lord and He expects big things from us. We are not to live in fear. We have a big God with big life changing adventures for us and we should be living beyond ourselves all the time.

To bring Him glory.

When you go through 'hard times' you have a couple of choices...(This is me preparing you..)

you either get bitter or draw closer to the Lord.

My choice is the latter. I will not give up..I will not go down saying "well I was too scared to do this or that because I lost so much and the pain is too bad."

I will live my life to the fullest...

When I die Lord willing an old old woman I want a bunch of children around my bed sending me

on to the other side saying 'well done mom'.

I have six voices now and Scott and I are moving forward with our adoption of voice #7....

We will not stop our calling in life.

We will move forward and trust that the Lord will use us to grow up another soul to love Him..

Will there be heartache? I don't know..

Will it be scary? I'm sure the un-known is always scary and for me lately that's been my way of life.

What's supposed to happen hasn't been happening and I've had to trust the Lord on a level that I've never had to trust him before.

Adoption I know is a put yourself out there kinda thing, but I don't just want to "survive" this journey. I want to live this journey....I want to make waves and the only way I know to do that is keep moving forward with my head up high looking to my Father.

It's trusting when I don't possibly know how every thing is going to work out.

But I'm in!! Scott's in. Heck, our whole family is in.......We know that this will change our life and we say "Bring It On".....

Voice #7, mamma's looking for you and I can't wait to see God show up and show out in our life...

I guess the main point I want you to see is that No-one can prepare you for YOUR hard-times.

You have to resolve to push forward through each hard time and grow and trust and keep moving..You can't change the past but you can impact the future..........

Memories from Charleston...

We invited some friends to vacation with us so we could "get to know them better".... It turned out to be one of the best vacations we have ever had.

As Mr. Tom said "Y'all took a chance"

Yes, we did, but we are so glad we did.

We built so many beautiful memories!

Did I mention there was 19 kids between our two families?

We walked,

Downtown in the old market,

down King street, through the battery...

We played in the huge fountain at White Point Gardens,

we walked on the Cooper River Bridge, just to say we did.

We played on the beach, collecting sea shells,

and jumping waves.

We ate wonderful food at neat restaurants, and laughed MUCH.

We did nightly devotions where afterwards

we sang or talked until late at night.

We had a surprise 'treat' when Mr. Tom
brought home chocolate one night.
We watched Indiana Jones movies until Late or Early depending on how you look at it...minus a few adults...:-)

We had a lazy picnic underneath

the huge oak trees in Charles Towne Landing,

where we wished we would have brought a quilt to take a nap.
We watched the kids 'get rich' from retrieving quarters from underneath the coke machine.

The kids played in the yard, acted like pirates, climbed trees, and camped out underneath the big "Tree" bed...all the while looking out for the "Germans"..:-)


We had a big 4th of July surprise, the Isle of Palms was having a huge fireworks show and we didn't know it. When we walked out on the beach it was packed and we ended up having perfect seats a gentle breeze from the ocean and a big fat moon over head.

We waited in line for bathrooms and all had a blast doing laundry and dishes together.

We laughed more than I thought possible.


The kids would fall asleep on the couch during devotion time at night and one by one we would carry them off to bed...
Some even fell asleep under the tables.

We helped a single mom that was our "neighbor"

she had cancer and needed some work done in her yard.

All of the guys cheerfully pitched in and got the job done,

leaving a lasting impression and a new friend from Charleston.

We had a big shrimp boil for supper on Saturday.

This was a time for reflection of our trip and a wind down.

Every day was bitter sweet because we all knew it was one less day we had together.

By the time Sunday rolled around, there was a cloud in the air.

Everyone woke up knowing that we were leaving

and once again Mr. Toms words were right on target:

"We will all be melancholy for a few days" he said, and his words have rang true for our family all day..

We lingered in the driveway saying good bye many times acting as if we were at summer camp and would not see each other till the next summer when if fact we'll see each other on Sunday.:)

We have walked away with a special bond with this family that will continue to grow..and we're already planning a trip to the snow capped mountains next.

Now this is one family we can travel with.

We just need a bus........